Chief Contemporary Dramatists (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION This volume contains eighteen complete plays from the drama of England, Ireland, the United States, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries. Together with the first volume of Chief Contemporary Dramatists, issued in 1915, there are now made available in convenient form thirty-eight plays of the first order of excellence from the theater of Europe and America. In the choice of plays the term "contemporary" has been interpreted strictly. Of the eighteen plays in this book, (c)ne third were produced in the decade between 1910 and 1920; all save three are products of the twentieth century. Of these works six have not before been published in English and are here made available for the first time in America. Comparing the plays in this volume with those which constituted the first series of Chief Contemporary Dramatists, some interesting tendencies in the theater of the western world are disclosed. While the thesis or problem play, derived from France and enforced by Ibsen, was predominant in the eighteen-nineties and the earlier years of the new century, the form disappears as the century approaches its second decade. The present volume contains no single distinct exemplar of this type of play. The result of the freeing of the play from the necessity of being socially serviceable has been greatly to enrich the theater with new interests both in structure and content, and to call into the craft of playmaking men from arts outside the theater. The era of problems did not pass without leaving some impress on the theater for its good. While dominating the motives of plays, the scientific method had an influence as well on the vehicle of dramatic expression. The thesis playwright found the theater bound by the.